Of raptors and lioncubs
by cuckoo clover
Summary: While bottle feeding the lion cubs, André sees the newcomer, an albino raptor keeper outside the glass window. Which wouldn't be so bad... except that their brother and cousin tried to ship them, André thought that Gilbert kidnapped a lion cub, leading to a feud more infamous than Joker and Batman. Through the mess of it all, maybe just one evening was enough to remedy this.
1. The newcomer

_**André- Paris (as for the face claim, imagine Richard Madden as Ashley Greenwick in Sirens)**_

_**Roshaun- Cameroon**_

* * *

"Hmm… what should I name you? I think I'm going to call you… Elsa." The little lion cub swished her tail, too busy drinking from the bottle to care. André smiled as he brushed the little forehead markings that all lion cubs had, making little suckling sounds to encourage it to drink. A newborn, the little cub was still blind and helpless, barely the size of a pencil case.

When the milk was gone, she let go and made little premature roars, wanting more.

"Shh…" he brushed her little fuzzy head with his thumb. "You've had your fill, chérie. I need to give your brothers some, too!"

"This guy is a wedge-tailed eagle. He's one of the largest eagles on the planet!" André raised his head and peered through the lion nursery's glass window. Outside the new raptor guy, (Gilbert, was it?) with said eagle perched on a training glove, rambled on about the eagle to a crowd of kids. The man seemed to be albino, with his marble white skin and his silver hair, so even with his back against André, he could tell it was him.

Gilbert turned his head around, allowing André to see a huge grin. Well, good to see other zookeepers loving their jobs at least.

After he finished feeding her brothers Kovu and Lionel Messi (blame Roshaun, he's crazy about soccer), André placed the cubs into their incubators, making sure to cover them with towels as one side faced the window. He turned around to see Elsa one last time.

But Gilbert was crouching down to _Elsa's _incubator. As he glanced up, André shivered. Those pinkish red eyes were unnerving.

As a joke, André squinted his eyes before pointing at both his eyes before redirecting back to the new guy. _I'm watching you._

The new guy Gilbert blinked before he grinned and winked. André raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes.

_What kind of idiot winks with both eyes?_

André knew judging someone by the cover was immature, but with how that new raptor guy looked, he decided it was wise to keep an eye out for him. Turning around, he closed the lion nursery's door and left. It should be Roshaun's shift soon, so Elsa should be fine.

* * *

_What kind of idiot takes that so seriously?_

Gilbert blinked as the brunet lion keeper left with a frown, confused at what had happened. The guy was doing a humorous gesture, so he thought they were joking around, but in the end, he left with some sort of glare. Gilbert scoffed. Yeah, as he winked meaning he would do something to a lion.

To be fair, the little cub was quite cute and helpless, maybe his keeper instincts were full blown or something like that. Fritz tapped his beak onto the glass, causing the lion cub to stir.

"Hey-! Fritz, _no_." Fritz pulled back at the command. Soon, another zookeeper came in and went to prepare the milk. The dark skinned man glanced up at him and Gilbert stood up. Probably time to leave.

* * *

_**Elsa's the name of a famous lioness from the 60s, she had a movie made about her. Kovu's name is from the character from Lion king: Simba's pride. As for Lionel Messi… well, André ain't LION when he said that Roshaun liked soccer ;)**_


	2. Love at first sight?

_**Ludwig and Francis are 7 so buckle up for some wacky hijinks**_

* * *

The day was the _bring your kid to work day _at the zoo. Ludwig's older brother Gilbert, with permission from their parents, brought him to the zoo where he worked. The morning and afternoon so far had been a small animal's educational course at the zoo's 'school', a facility built for visiting school students. The experience would improve from showing some more animals, though when Ludwig asked Gilbert about this, Gilbert shrugged and pointed out that some of the animals weren't meant to be handled by the public, such as the lions, except for the lion cubs because they're not big enough to cause harm yet.

Ludwig and the other kids had lunch in the zookeepers' breakroom where their lunch was kept in the fridge. He ate his lunch in his bubble of an empty corner away from the other kids who were laughing and pushing and shoving each other. Ludwig shivered.

To his surprise, a blonde boy with chin lengthed hair about his age approached him.

"Hi, I'm Francis," the kid said as he nibbled on his sandwich.

"My name's Ludwig," Ludwig replied. Francis nodded with a smile and rubbed his chin.

"Say, are you Gilbert's younger brother?" Ludwig frowned. When did he notice that?

"... Yes?"

"Perfect!" Francis exclaimed with his hands on his hips. Ludwig blinked.

"Erhm, how come?"

"Well…" Francis, with his eyes half-lidded, smirked and leaned in close to Ludwig's ear. "My cousin André has a crush on him~"

Ludwig pursed his lips. "He does?"

"Uh-huh!" Francis vigorously nodded with a wide smile across his face, his eyes sparkling like glitter. "He will be anyway."

"Will be?"

"Yeah! They haven't talked yet but considering how Gilbert is a newcomer and André mentioned him even though they haven't met yet, I think he's got an eye on him!"

"Oh." Ludwig rubbed his arm. "Erhm… are you sure?"

"Yes! I'm a love guru, I can watch all of those kissy movies without looking away and I've watched them all, so I'm certain that André likes Gilbert!"

Ludwig couldn't argue with that, because whenever the boy and his girlfriend kiss he always found himself looking away from embarrassment.

"So tell me, what's Gilbert like?" Francis asked.

"Well…" Ludwig spun his eyes around as he thought. "He's not interested in the romance stuff."

"Does he like art or philosophy?"

"He likes to read those thick philosophy books with no pictures sometimes."

"Perfect! André likes philosophy too! Hmm," Francis tapped his chin. "Is he kooky?"

"What?"

"Kooky. My cousin André thinks that the melting watch guy is a God."

Ludwig had a feeling that this would not go as planned, but he still continued. "Gilbert's orderly, but he likes to pull pranks sometimes."

"That's great! André's very messy so being with someone orderly can fix that, and he's cheeky too! Hmm… André really likes caring for people. Is Gilbert caring?"

"Gilbert sometimes is. But he does it when no one else is looking."

"Hmm…" Francis crossed his arms and pouted while he spun his eyes. "That's very problematic. Oh! But I have a plan…"

* * *

Francis had told Ludwig to stick around till 5pm when most of the other kids were gone. Ludwig thought it'd be a simple plan like getting André and Gilbert to talk. But after Francis finalised a plan that involved stealing things and deceiving people, Ludwig wasn't as certain that it would work.

"The lion nursery is connected to the breakroom so travel is easy. While you're in the lion nursery, I can call André to come over and say that I want to know where the bathroom is. Then you can grab Elsa and give it to Gilbert. When André sees Gilbert cradling Elsa in his arms like a baby, he'll fall head over heels for him!"

Ludwig furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't think we're allowed to touch the lion cubs."

"For love, anything's okay."

Eventually, very, _very _reluctantly, Ludwig agreed. Francis was the love guru, wasn't he? Whatever a guru was.

André was in the lion cub nursery bottle feeding the lion cubs so Francis gave him a call, saying that he was completely lost and needed help to find the toilet. Francis gave Ludwig a wink because Francis and Ludwig were, in fact, hiding inside a broom closet beside the lion club nursery. André took the bait and soon they heard footsteps tap out of the room. Francis nodded and ran out of the broom closet in the opposite direction. That was it, all he needed to do was to grab the lion cub and give it to Gilbert. He could do it.

He couldn't do it. The lion cub was a lot bigger and feistier than he had thought, most notably the claws and teeth. The cub wriggled inside of his arms and as Ludwig grasped tighter the cub struggled more violently. Oh no, this was a bad idea, this was a bad idea. His heart thumped more than it did when Woody and his friends nearly got burnt in Toy Story 3.

Ludwig ran down the hallway, clutching the cub tighter, terrified that the cub would drop. Where was the lunchroom, where was the lunchroom… there it was! And Gilbert was sipping a cup of coffee too, all alone! A massive spike of panic welled inside when Gilbert's eyes met his and he spat out his coffee at the cub in his arms.

"LUDWIG WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THAT-"

"GILBERTIVEGOTALIONCUBCANYOUHOLDITFORME"

"WHAT?!" Ludwig dumped the cub into Gilbert's arms and dashed off right outside the lunchroom where Francis waited as planned, though Ludwig was still more terrified than relieved. At the end of the corridor, steps thumped their way to the lunch room. Sure enough, it was André with vivid blue fire in his eyes. Gilbert slithered back as Elsa mewed in a way that suspiciously sounded like 'mum'.

"Here he comes!" Francis whispered, his eyes glimmering like sapphires as André entered the room. "Now it's gonna be love at first sight!"

_SMACK!_

"YOU ASSWIPE!" André swiped the sleeping lion cub back with a furious expression. "You think it's funny to steal a lion cub, huh?" Gilbert rubbed the growing bruise, his eyes wide, his face exasperated and confused, while André glared back with the ferocity of a mother lion protecting her cub. Ludwig winced. This was _definitely _not love at first sight.

"_Me_? Pfft, _hell _no! Why would I ever steal that thing?" André turned Elsa away from Gilbert, fire raging in his eyes.

"Thing? Oh yeah, sure, your coldblooded raptors are your babies but suddenly a defenceless cub is just a toy?"

"Hey! Birds are _not _coldblooded! If anything, _you _are!"

"Save your metaphors for your sorry speech, you coward!"

"HEY!"

Ludwig and Francis snuck behind the wall as the fighting continued. Even from behind the wall, they could tell that the argument was continuing on, and fierce. Francis clasped his hands together.

"So alright, maybe it'll take some more time before they admit their feelings. Fingers crossed for some more _bring your kid to work _days?"


End file.
